More than half a day after the arrest of Partha Chatterjee in the alleged teacher recruitment scam, the Trinamool Congress spelled out its stand on the controversy and said it would take steps if the West Bengal minister is proven guilty in the court of law.
Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday morning after a marathon questioning session of 26 hours.
The CBI, as directed by the Calcutta High Court, is looking into the alleged irregularities committed in the recruitment of Group-C and D staff as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on recommendations of the West Bengal School Service Commission. The ED is tracking the money trail in the scam.
The latter had on Friday carried out simultaneous raids at the houses of around a dozen people, including two ministers, in connection with its investigation into the teacher recruitment scam in West Bengal and seized around Rs 20 crore in cash from the premises of Chatterjee’s aide Arpita Mukherjee.
Ending the party’s silence on the developments, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said: “We have got the ED version… money has been recovered. We are clearly saying the TMC has no relation with this money. The person from whose residence this has been recovered is not from the TMC. This is in court now. We have seen central agency investigations take huge time. We also want that the investigation should take place at a fast pace.”
TMC minister Firhad Hakim, meanwhile, floated the conspiracy theory that the raids would not have been carried out had Chatterjee joined the BJP. “If Partha Chatterjee had gone to BJP washing machine, then this would not have happened. There are people against whom there is proof, but because they changed parties, nothing has been done,” he said.
The TMC also lashed out at the Congress, saying it speaks up only when Sonia Gandhi is summoned by the agency.
Political experts say the TMC has clearly adopted the strategy of distancing itself from the controversy while at the same time floating the conspiracy theory of political vendetta. With the seizure of cash during ED raids, the party has changed tacks since the arrests of Madan Mitra and Sudip Banerjee when it had taken to the streets.
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